Teen dealer ran ‘portable shop’

A TEENAGER was run­ning a well-or­gan­ised cannabis dealing busi­ness from his shoul­der bag, a court has heard.

When a po­lice of­fi­cer stopped Ryan Naaif near Swansea Crown Court they found he had a stash of cannabis, empty gripseal bags, weigh­ing scales, cash, and a mo­bile phone with mes­sages ad­ver­tis­ing his wares in his shoul­der bag.

His sub­se­quent ar­rest and pros­e­cu­tion is said to have been a wake-up call for the young­ster, who was aged 17 at the time.

Swansea Crown Court heard that on the af­ter­noon of Septem­ber 2, 2017, po­lice were pa­trolling the area around St He­len’s Road and the court fol­low­ing in­tel­li­gence sug­gest­ing drug dealing was tak­ing place at that lo­ca­tion.

Ian Wright, pros­e­cut­ing, said a PC on foot pa­trol walk­ing down Bruns­wick Street no­ticed three males stand­ing in an al­ley­way, and went to talk to them.

One of those males was Naaif.

The court heard the of­fi­cer asked the teenager if he had any­thing on him which he shouldn’t have, and the sus­pect replied “weed”.

In Naaif’s shoul­der bag the of­fi­cer found 21 grams of cannabis, a num­ber of empty snapseal plas­tic bags, some pre­pared cannabis deals, electronic weigh­ing scales, al­most £100 in cash and a black iphone.

The con­sta­ble ar­rested the teenager on sus­pi­cion of pos­ses­sion of drugs with in­tent to sup­ply.

Mr Wright said the mo­bile phone was sub­se­quently ex­am­ined and found to con­tain a se­ries of mes­sages re­lat­ing to drug dealing and the avail­abil­ity of one and half-ounce deals.

One of mes­sages sent by Naaif to his con­tacts read: “Bang­ing new smoke in, about town now, let me know.”

Naaif, of Mil­ton Street, St Thomas, Swansea, had pre­vi­ously pleaded guilty to pos­ses­sion of cannabis with in­tent to sup­ply when he ap­peared in the dock for sen­tenc­ing.

The court heard he has no pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions.

An­drew Evans, for Naaif, said that at the time of the of­fence the defendant had been “as­so­ci­at­ing with a peer group in­volved in the sup­ply of con­trolled sub­stances” but had now turned his life around.

He said: “The events of May 2017 have been a sig­nif­i­cant wake-up call for him about the path his life was tak­ing.”

Judge Keith Thomas told the defendant he had been caught with a “portable shop for the sup­ply of cannabis”, and had been run­ning a “rel­a­tively well-or­gan­ised and com­mer­cial op­er­a­tion”.

The judge said the start­ing point for sen­tenc­ing after trial in such a case would have been one of 12 months de­ten­tion – giv­ing Naaif credit for his guilty plea that was re­duced to eight months, and was sus­pended for 12 months.